Bookish Thoughts

 Last week, I posted about my library haul. I said I'd let you know what I thought of these books, so here I am to do that.

I returned two of the books unread. One wasn't what I thought it'd be, so I DNFed it. The other still seemed like a good book, but I was no longer in the mood to read it. This isn't a one-off for me. I am so grateful to have access to all the libraries in the country. But I'm very much a mood reader and it's often the case that I request a book because it seems really interesting or like something I want to read, but by the time I get it, I've moved on and have turned my attention elsewhere. This is most often the case with non-fiction. It's not the kind of thing that happens with the majority of the books I request, but it does happen sometimes. So it was this time. 

I did read the other three I'd picked up and here are some brief thoughts.

Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima is a small novel, considered a classic in Japan, that was serialized there in 1978-79. It's a short novel about a woman who finds herself a single mother when her marriage breaks up. The novel follows her through the first year of this part of her life. It's a realistic, sometimes painful description of the struggles she experienced as the mother of a daughter who is, like her, strong-willed. There are times she questions herself and times she is ashamed of her behavior. This isn't a saccharine sweet novel about the joys of motherhood, but more about the sometimes brutal reality of the role. I've read that it's a very autobiographical novel. I liked this book. I didn't love it, but I found the cultural aspects of her motherhood interesting, both because I'm a mother myself and because I did research on the ideology of motherhood in grad school. 

This is a new book and quite timely. In it, Rees draws on his decades of historical research into the Nazi era and delves into the psychology of the people who were part of the regime and those who supported them or who simply went along. He examined the literature and interviewed psychologists for this work. I found this book well worth reading, although I would have liked a bit more psychological insight. To be fair, he's a historian not a psychologist. It's a timely book, of course and throughout there are so many similarities to things that are happening today. Rees concludes the book with a list of 12 warnings for people today--things to watch out for in today's world. It's important to remember that while specifics will be different according to culture--no fascist movement can be successful unless it builds on whatever culture it's part of--there are overarching themes that are evident cross-culturally. I'm very glad I read this book.

Finally, the book I loved the most from that haul was this one:

Love, love, love! The author is a rare book dealer and Jane Austen fan. One day, she was picking up a collection when she discovered a book by Frances Burney. She'd never heard of Burney, even though she is mentioned in Northanger Abbey as well as Austen's letters. Romney realized she'd taken for granted the misogynist opinions about what constitutes 'the canon' and the idea that Austen was the first great woman novelist. A small bit of investigation showed Romney that Austen read, loved, and found inspirational the work of many women. She felt a bit sheepish that, as a rare book specialist, she knew nothing about these women, so she embarked on a project to learn more about them and to add to her book collection. She organizes the book around several of these authors--Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth. She looked for books, she read works by and about these women, she got angry at the dismissal of their work, and she recognized the ways in which they drew on and were constrained by their life situations and the societies in which they lived. She didn't love them all--neither did Austen, apparently. As for me, I've read short stories and/or excerpts of longer work by Edgeworth and Inchbald and read a novel by Radcliffe (via Serial Reader) as well as two of Burney's novels, which I loved, especially Cecilia. Needless to say, I've placed some requests at the library and sent myself some links to download books from Project Gutenberg so I can read more work by these women. I also went through the bibliography--as you do--and put a hold on another work of feminist literary history and one that's an early gothic reader. I'm quite interested in both and I suspect that interest will remain for the time it takes the books to get to me. Another fun aspect of this book was her description of the rare book dealer world. She weaves together this, the discussions of the authors, their lives, and their work, and the ways Austen was inspired by them extremely well. This was a very fun book to read.

I had nothing in this week, but I'm hopeful for next week. I currently have 5 things in transit and more could be coming soon. I hope you have plenty of great reading material to enjoy!

Share

All There and Ever-Changing

 

“The flower, when it wilts, becomes the compost. The compost can help grow a flower again. Happiness is also organic and impermanent by nature. It can become suffering and suffering can become happiness again.

If you look deeply into a flower, you see that a flower is made only of nonflower elements. In that flower there is a cloud. Of course we know a cloud isn’t a flower, but without a cloud, a flower can’t be. If there’s no cloud, there’s no rain, and no flower can grow. You don’t have to be a dreamer to see a cloud floating in a flower. It’s really there. Sunlight is also there. Sunlight isn’t flower, but without sunlight no flower is possible.

If we continue to look deeply into the flower, we see many other things, like the earth and the minerals. Without them a flower cannot be. So it’s a fact that a flower is made only of nonflower elements. A flower can’t be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with everything else. You can’t remove the sunlight, the soil, or the cloud from the flower.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

Share

Be More Dandelion

 

Several months ago, a friend--a retired florist--asked me what kind of flower I would be. I replied that I've always thought of myself as a dandelion. She was taken aback--not the answer she was expecting. But dandelions really are my favorite flower. They're tough. Knock them down and they keep coming back. When they pop up in the middle of a manicured lawn or flower bed, they remind us that we can try to sculpt everything into the form we want, but nature will have her say in the end. They're unruly and don't conform to human constructs and expectations. For those that appreciate dandelions, they can have a lot of benefits. For those that don't, they're just annoying. I've always felt connected to dandelions. And as I get older, I'm even more dandelion than ever.

a friend sent me this card over 20 years ago--been carrying it around ever since

Share

Replacements

 Several years ago, I made Bill a pair of fingerless gloves using some yarn I had left over from a giant cone a friend brought back for me from a thrift store in Boston. It's thin yarn with thicker slubs scattered throughout. I wound some off and used it double stranded to crochet myself a big cozy sweater. I had lots of yarn left. I still haven't used it all and that's a good thing.

Although I've made Bill a few other pair of fingerless gloves, he wore the first pair most often--on a daily basis for most of the year. We both wear them. Both of us get cold hands and I end up with aching wrists, too. I've found that wearing the gloves prevents the ache. Bill likes them because they keep his hands warm. He has thicker ones for wearing outside on chilly/cold days, but for indoor use, he liked the thinner ones. One day we were out on a mild day and he lost one of them. Since I had more of the same yarn, I told him I could make him a replacement. But when he gave me the remaining glove, I decided to just make him a new pair. The glove was showing its age and parts of it would have needed redoing anyway. Also, after all that use, it was a bit stretched out and it would have felt funny having one broken in glove and one new one, I think. So I rummaged around, found the appropriate double- pointed needles, pulled out the bag with the yarn and knit away in the evenings whilst listening to various things. I wove in the ends the other night and now he's got a new pair.

There's no pattern, I just made it up as I went when I made the first pair and noted down the numbers. It's an easy project. I use double points because I prefer them, but magic loop, 2 circulars, or 9-inch circulars could also be used. I held the yarn double, which I would say resulted in something between sock weight and DK weight. I used US size 2 needles and the resulting fabric is quite firm, so sturdy enough to wear well. I tend to be a loose knitter. If I had thicker yarn and bigger needles, I would cast on fewer stitches. This is easily adaptable. For these, I cast on 48 stitches, separated them so that I had 16 on each needle, did several inches of 2x2 rib, and then plain knitting around until I reached the base of my thumb. I just measured by trying them on. To make the opening for the thumb, I started working back and forth, alternating knit and purl rows and turning after I'd done the stitches on the third needle. I did 10 rows this way.  After that, I went back to working in the round until they were just about long enough and ended with an inch or so of 2x2 rib. To make the thumb, I crocheted a few rounds around the opening--it's too fiddly to be dealing with the double pointed needles on so few stitches. I did US half double crochets through the 3rd loop around and around until the thumb piece was as long as I wanted it. Weaving in all the ends was the last step and they were ready to go. Just in time for it to warm up next week. 

Share

Last Straw

 When we moved to Ireland, it was both sudden and something we'd been planning, albeit very loosely, for a long time. We knew we were going to go, but we had no idea when. Life went on. Then, very unexpectedly, the opportunity was suddenly upon us. We had a couple of months to get things in order and go. There was a lot to do, including getting rid of almost everything. We didn't have anything large worth shipping and because we knew we'd want to make this move, we didn't acquire a lot of nonessential things, but we still had household basics to pass on, which we did in various ways. On the Freecycle page, someone asked for anything that might be useful for someone setting up a new apartment. A woman had left an abusive relationship and she was starting over with almost nothing. We were able to give here everything she needed to outfit her kitchen, along with some plants and a piece of artwork. I listed other things on a buy-and-sell Facebook page in our local area. I didn't want to spend time haggling as people often did on the page, so I put really low prices on things and they got snapped up. This was good, but it did mean that we had to schedule meeting times to hand things over. When we met the woman who bought my bread machine, she said I hadn't asked enough for it, so she gave me more. While all this was going on, our broadband was iffy and I ended up having to plug in my laptop to the modem in the bedroom to ensure a connection, which I needed for all of these donations and transactions--cell phones weren't as ubiquitous as they are now and we didn't have one. I was still volunteering two or three times a week at the local food bank/food pantry/soup kitchen. We were looking at rental properties on Daft.ie and trying to figure out what we could expect. We learned that almost all rentals come fully furnished right down to the kettles and teaspoons, so that was one less thing to think about. If we found a place, we'd be able to settle right in. Since we knew we wouldn't be getting a car, this was one thing off our minds--no furniture to acquire. We were trying to find a B&B to stay at for a time once we got to Ireland, and arrange for transport from the airport. We'd thought about taking buses, but decided that wouldn't really be practical, because in the end, we went with 3 suitcases and 3 backpacks. It was cheaper to pay for 2 extra bags than to mail things. But this limit on space and weight meant that, with a handful of exceptions, our books would not be able to come with us. We donated them to the local library for their book sale.

Upon our arrival in Ireland, our driver met us at the airport and drove us to the B&B we'd booked for a week. I never sleep on planes and for several years before that, long plane rides caused me to be ill the following day, so I was tired and I knew I was going to be nonfunctional the next day. This proved to be the case. I felt queasy when I woke up, but we managed to get to the local Tesco to buy a pay-as-you-go phone and get a few groceries before I went down. I was not at all coherent, had a headache that felt like someone was inside my head trying to stab their way out, shivering, and unable to keep any food down. Later I learned that Bill was trying to figure out how to set up the new phone while I was out of it. By the middle of that night, I knew I was on the mend, with just the aftermath to deal with. By then it was the weekend, and we went out for walks each day and down to breakfast in the dining room to chat with other guests and the lovely owners, but the rest of each day was spent with both of us on our computers. Bill would look up possible rentals and I would investigate bus schedules, towns/villages, etc. I kept lists. Finally, we saw that there was one town that had three different possibilities--we could get there and back on the bus in one day and it seemed to have everything we'd need. We figured we'd start there. On Monday morning, the co-owner of the B&B offered us a ride to Galway as he was going there anyway, so we rode in with him. When it was 10 o'clock, I called the letting agent who had listed all three places and left what must have seemed to her like a strange message to start a week. I tried to fit everything in, telling her that we were new to the country, were looking to rent a place quickly, saw her listings and we were fairly certain that if she could find time to show them to us we would choose one of them. I gave her the phone number. I was cut off in the middle of this and had to call back to continue. Then we went off to explore a little bit, not knowing if she'd call back. She did, within the hour. Then we had to call her back to confirm date and time after we'd gone to the tourist information centre to check on bus schedules. The following day, we went, looked at a couple of places, chose one, filled out an application, gave her a deposit, and caught the bus back to the B&B, all within 45 minutes. She said she'd confirm with the owner and call me on Wednesday. By Wednesday evening, I hadn't heard from her, so I called her. The call was dropped. I called back. Voicemail. She called me. We could move in the following day, which was perfect because it was the end of our week at the B&B. The next morning, our host drove us an hour away to our new apartment in a different county, helped us carry our bags upstairs, showed us how to use the storage heat and explained the immersion water heater and the off-peak electricity system, and left us to it. We walked to a store and bought sheets, towels, and groceries. The next day began the other stuff we had to figure out--opening a bank account, trying to get broadband, etc. I was very tired. From the time we knew we were making the move to then, I was just putting one foot in front of the other and completing the next task as it arose. In the US, people commented on how I didn't seem excited at all. Who had the time? There was a lot going on. Really, I was just tired. Sometimes there was a glimmer of unreality that I would notice--a feeling of amazement at what was going on, but mostly I was just thinking about the next thing that had to be done. 

Of course, we were using the library for wifi access while we waited for it to be connected in our apartment. I did get excited when we had proof of address because we could get our library cards. The day arrived and we did what we needed to do online, then went up to the librarian who was there at her desk in the one-room library that was an old church (this is fairly common here and I love it!). She was a lovely woman named Mary. I said we wanted to get library cards and held out our proof of address. And then it happened. I know she was trying to be helpful, but her words were the last straw. She said that it cost €5 per year for Bill to get a library card (because he qualified for a senior card) and that there was no reason for me to pay for one as well because we could check out up to 8 books at a time on the one card. She said the 'eight' as though it was a huge number. Obviously, I wasn't going to argue, so Bill got his card, we checked out books, and went outside. The dam burst. I could hold back no longer and I burst into tears. Bill stood there, stunned, as I blubbered on about how 8 books was nothing for two people and we had to leave all our books behind and I need books. Finally he said to me, "It'll be OK. She just doesn't know who you are yet. But she will." And she did. Now, there really was no reason for me to be upset. The library was a very short walk away and it was open several days a week, so returning books and checking out new ones was not ever going to be a problem. We got books at charity shops and replaced some of the more special ones we had to leave behind. We never ran out of reading material. But in that moment, everything I'd been pushing aside in order to complete the necessary tasks came rushing back and I lost it for a few minutes.

We moved to a different county the following year where the library was run differently. I got my first Irish library card there. Although I would have paid the fee, there wasn't one. Then they revamped the entire library system so while we have cards from our home counties, we have access to libraries nationwide. I love my libraries. And on my way to one yesterday, I was chuckling at myself once again as I remembered that moment when I stood outside the old church which had become a library and wept. 

Share

Library Haul

 We did a library run today--I had 5 books in. I was waiting for the last one, which came in today. 

Here they are:

I read an excerpt from this book in The Guardian several weeks ago. It's written by a rare book dealer who became interested in the woman authors whose books were available to Jane Austen during her lifetime. I'm quite interested in women writers from the past who may now be mostly forgotten--or at least not as well known as some of the male authors writing at the same time. I've read some of Frances Burney's work and loved it, as well as some Victorian women writers, but the latter would've been after Jane Austen, so I'm looking forward to learning more about women who wrote before. I suspect there may be some clicking around Project Gutenberg in my near future.

Next, I got this one, which is hard to see. It was recommended in someone's book blog and is a short novel that was originally serialized in Japan in the late 70s.

It's a pretty little book called Territory of Light, written by Yuko Tsushima

Not sure where I heard about this next one--probably came across it when doing a library search for something else.

Bill is going to read the next one too, and he asked me how I learned of it. I have no idea. I suspect it was another one that I found when looking for something else. I love the online catalogue!

This is from the Oxford University Press web page about the book:

• From the celebrated historian of Nazi Germany, Mark Roseman, winner of the Wingate Prize and the Fraenkel Prize for previous works.
• The story of a remarkable but completely unsung group that risked everything to help the most vulnerable.
• Offers the most richly documented account ever of any rescue network and sheds unparalleled light on the choices, dilemmas, and dangers of acting under Nazi rule.
• Explores the tensions between wartime experience and the way we have to come to think about rescue in later memory which challenges conventional ways of thinking and writing about rescue and the rescuer, and opens up new perspectives.

Finally, here's the last book I got today and the one that's been on my list the longest. I read about it in January in an article about books to look for it 2025 and immediately went to the library and put myself in the queue. At that point, there were several copies on order and I was number 12. Once the books came in and got processed, I moved down pretty quickly and it went in transit last week and arrived at my library this morning.

When I read about it, I was intrigued. Back in 2015, I noticed that the people who were fans of the orange creature that is currently polluting the White House sounded quite like the people I'd read about in oral histories (I highly recommend Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich by Alison Owings) and other work about Germany in the 1930s. Change some proper nouns and the sorts of things they were saying were just about identical. This is a topic that interests me for a few reasons, one of which is that my paternal grandfather, who died when my father was a child, was one of the original Nazis. I did know my paternal grandmother and have tried to imagine her as a young Nazi wife in that era. This was not something that was really talked about and I think she was told not to speak to me about it, but I'm not sure. I did not have the kind of relationships in my family of origin where it was safe to be curious and ask questions. Beyond that, I'm also interested in the cultural issues that lead people to this way of thinking and allows them to think that they are somehow going to be immune from the disastrous consequences that these kinds of movements have resulted in in the past. So my interest is both cultural/societal and personal. This is the book I'll be reading first. I'll let you know how it is.

Share

Where Few Have Gone

 Last week, in either an article or a blog post, I read about this book:

It sounded like something I'd like to read, so I clicked over to the library, saw that there was one copy in one library nationwide, and that it was available. I placed my request. I sent the article/blog post to Bill. Later on, he said to me, "The library has that book, but only one copy and someone already has a hold on it. I'm two of two." We both laughed when I replied, "I'm one of one, so you can cancel yours."

To my great surprise, it arrived at my pick-up library on Tuesday morning. I'd expected it to take longer. We'd already planned to go to the library that day, so I was able to collect it. And it was a great read. It's a memoir, but also provides insight into what cave diving is like, the natural environments in which she searched for dive spots and the underwater environments in which she made her dives. She also describes the culture of the cave diving community, the dangers divers face, and the tragedies they deal with on an all too regular basis. There are photos in the book which gave me goosebumps as I looked at them--such incredibly beautiful parts of the planet unseen by most people.

Because of the nature of cave diving and some of the locations in which the dives too place, including Antarctica, there were some suspenseful segments of the book. Obviously I knew she would survive even as she described not being sure herself at the time. She did write the book afterwards, so her fate was never in doubt. But I was never sure about her dive partners.

Heinerth engages in self-reflection and describes her personal growth throughout the book and I found that aspect of it interesting, too. Her journey to self-acceptance about who she is and is not and how she just isn't really wired to be the kind of woman who comfortably fits into societal expectations and roles resonated with me. Not that I ever had any interest in being a cave diver! Cave diving isn't something I knew anything about--or even thought about, really. It wasn't until I saw the article/blog post that I thought I'd like to read a book about it. It was a happy surprise.

Share